Pope Francis has proclaimed 35 new saints, most of whom were martyrs killed as Catholicism spread in South America. Among them are the “martyrs of Natal” – a group of 30 Catholics massacred by armed groups led by Dutch Calvinists. The group, killed in north Brazil in 1645, included a child and a priest who had been celebrating Mass at the time of the attack. The other saints included the “Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala,” three children who were among Mexico’s first native converts and were killed for refusing to renounce the faith, as well as Ss Angelo da Acri, an Italian Capuchin priest known for his defence of the poor, and Faustino Miguez, a Spanish priest who started a school for girls. In a homily Pope Francis said that, like the new saints, Christians were called to live their faith as a love story with God who wants a relationship that is “more than that of devoted subjects with their king”. Without a loving relationship with God, Christian life can become empty and “an impossible ethic, a collection of rules and laws to obey for no good reason,” the Pope said during Mass in St Peter’s Square. “This is the danger: a Christian life that becomes routine, content with ‘normality’, without drive or enthusiasm, and with a short memory,” he said. Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St Matthew in which Jesus recounts the parable of the wedding feast. Noting Jesus’s emphasis on the wedding guests, the Pope said that God “wants us, he goes out to seek us and he invites us” to celebrate with him. If God’s invitation is refused, he does not cancel the wedding feast but continues to invite Christians to overcome “the whims of our peevish and lazy selves” and to imitate the new saints who, he said, not only said yes to God’s invitation, but wore “the wedding garment” of God’s love. “The robe they wore daily was the love of Jesus, that ‘mad’ love that loved us to the end and offered his forgiveness and his robe to those who crucified him.”